Acta, Harena, Frater
by frooit
Summary: Beach, sand, brother. ::incest::


**acta, harena, ****frater **

**  
**

It's netted and digging only slightly into his skin; especially at his hips and ankles, where he's balanced not to fall out. Because it's a hammock. Tied between two trees. Two palm trees on a beach he can't remember the name of. It sways if the wind blows hard enough, and it does here. A constant breath of cool breeze. Ocean. It'll swing and the sky will move; back and forth, blue-white midday. Plumes of white cloud, not moving but moving. Swinging.

White sand on a white beach under blasted white sunlight, and Connor sidling up, just the noise of sand shifting like hissing under his bare feet. Murphy continues to lie where he is, oblivious, between two palm trees in a hammock that Connor set up himself. Murphy's hands are threaded behind his head and in his hair. He's dark, conflicting against the white. Dark blue jeans, wet from ocean water; dark brown short-sleeve, clinging, thin. White skin. _White_.

Connor comes up slower, deliberately _sneaking_. Moving around so he's on the side Murph isn't and _lifts_, snagging his fingers in the loops. The hammock rises to one side, the rope creaks, and Murphy spills out.

**  
**

"What the fuck?" A growl that might have been something else had the hammock not been between them.

"S'my turn, lazy ass."

"Like fuck it is."

"Who set up the hammock, hm? That was me." He points to himself as emphasis, getting the fingers of his hand tangled into the hammock's knots even more.

"There's enough room for two," Murphy says, making a face.

"What makes ya think I wanna share?" Connor uncoils his fingers so fast the hammock swings over Murphy's head. Because he's still in the sand. Nearly cross-legged, rubbing grain from his palms over his jeans. Jeans that are wet, sopping, sticking to the insides of his thighs, rubbing, tacky, cool—and Connor knows this because he's staring.

"Where the fuck did you get off to?" Murphy asks, slice of sound, finding a cigarette from the pack he left at the base of a palm and biting the end so he can _smirk _(_taunt_) around it and up at Connor.

"Shut it, I was lookin' around. Over there."

"And?"

"And what?"

"'_And what'_, retard, did ya see anyone?" Switch-click of lighter and whoosh of smoke.

"Oh, you're real fuckin' nice. No."

Before he knows it—before he _wants_ to know it—Connor's got a head full of sand. Trickling, _alive _sand, rolling, grain by grain, down his back, over his eyes, over his chest, sand screen. Shifting hiss in his ears until everything settles and he's sure he can move without dire consequence.

Fuck.

And wouldn't Murphy just be _howling_.

Howling, standing, leaning, cigarette hazing heavier on every new breath, and a point. Just the index.

He's not sure how he did it, but he did it. Murphy made like he was standing, _unfolding_, and Connor didn't look directly at him, no, he looked split-second down, to the side, and then _sand_. Murphy like a cloud passing over the sun, just that moment, corner of the eye, _light_, shadow, and then fucking _sand_. A fist full from around where he'd been rubbing his hands, taken up as an afterthought, slipping through folded fingers. Tossed, scattered, and Connor's shoulders hunched up high.

Connor has sand down he jeans, he can feel it.

He can feel it especially as he _leaps_. Grit. Scrape. And then he can feel it on his knees, because he's missed Murphy. He's nicked the sleeve of his shirt, but landed on the ground, digging a track with his knees. And Murph's _giggling_ practically, cheeky, sliding around the palm and dropping his cig.

"Oh, no ya don't," Connor growls, using his hands to lever himself up, bringing sand with him.

The beach isn't long. It isn't much of a _beach_, in fact. Rocks, like lava rock, black and pointed, march up from the ocean. They fan out, become a cliff on one side, and open up into a space where the water can rise in on the other. And that's where they are. MacManus fucking beach. Sand sharp as needle points. And there's Murphy, making another face, clapping the dust off his hands, licking his lips, and bouncing on one foot. Waiting, rather impatient, for his brother to pounce.

Connor shakes his head before attacking, though, because it feels funny and heavy. Just slightly. Sand behind his ears, still moving, sliding. He instantly smells dry, dry dirt when he does. Coughs, catches another giggle—_smoker's cackle_—from Murph.

"Your fuckin' _spiky_ hair, oh, my God. Holds sand better."

Connor charges, nearly loses his footing because the sand is so yielding, and snags Murph by the back of the shirt. Tugs, high on the collar, and shoves what sand he still has in his hands down. Murphy shrieks, the shirt stretches, rips, underneath all that white skin; a tattoo up the right shoulder blade. He lets go just before it ruins.

"Oh fuckin' brilliant, Mister Hammock," Murphy hisses, looking over his shoulder to assess the damage.

"S'fine. See?" Connor starts smirking, smoothing it out, brushing off sand. His hand lingers. Really _lingers_, contemplating, and his smirk tilts. There was a boy and his hand lingered, kinda thing. It stayed, felt, traced two fingers over ink, skin cooler than he was expecting. Just a touch cooler, so he lays his palm over most of what skin is showing. Murphy isn't moving, his head's bowed, and when Connor notices, he shoves him forward. Murphy makes an annoyed noise, but another shove and there's the hammock, listing in wind blowing.

No subtleties for a brother he knows too well. Connor has his hands up Murph's shirt before he's pressed him entirely back into the palm tree. A trunk just wide enough to lean all your weight into. Just wide enough for Murphy to fit against. Hands dusty, gritty, sliding over Murph's stomach to grip his hips. Half on wet jeans, half on damp-cold skin.

Kissing like this, Connor can taste smoke and ocean and grains of sand that _crunch_ when their teeth nick, click. And doesn't the wind just scream then, _whipping_, so Connor has to move closer, and Murph insinuates his hands onto Connor's back and neck. Not kindly either—nails and fingers dig in, sweat, cling, and he bites his bottom lip. Hard enough so he's bleeding maybe, but Murphy's not giving him a chance to check. Licking, sucking, and all this under a palm tree on a beach they don't know the name of.

And why ruin a good thing? Because not only is Murphy impatient, he's rough and he's fucking _horny_. And while Connor's perfectly content with sucking face, Murph needs contact. He doesn't need his shirt, he needs it _off_, and why didn't he just go shirtless like Connor anyway?

"Do me a favour," Murphy says, but not entirely _says_, because his voice isn't there.

"Huh?" Connor has sand dust in his eyebrows.

"_Rip._" And Murphy demonstrates by fisting his hand in his shirt's collar. Tugs.

"Right." So Connor does.

He grabs Murph by the hair with one hand, and rips the shirt with the other. All the while not breaking something crossed between a kiss and pornography. Because brother's don't kiss, they do something completely different and more depraved. They suck face at sixteen, and keep doing it up 'til now. Done gracefully, you won't cross over into question land. And they hadn't. Brother's first, whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-call-this second. It isn't in conversational rotation.

It's tearing through a tee-shirt to get skin to skin. It's Murphy trying to wriggle a hand down Connor's jeans. It's shoving off a palm tree for some kind of friction, _anything_, tripping into a hammock, and then just _swinging_. It may not have a name.

**  
**

Connor lets his feet down to stop them, and they do, just like that, and Murphy would have slid out if Connor hadn't a death grip on his hips still. The hammock's leaned in a way like a sofa. Tilted. Murphy's breathing in his ear. Coming down off the high. And look, there's the ocean, and the sun setting, and white sand turned grey. You can't buy time like this, it's given.

"S'gettin' late," Connor says.

"Aye."

It's netted and digging only slightly into their skin; especially at the hips and the ankles. They're balanced just right not to fall out. Because it's a hammock. Swinging.


End file.
